It's true if you're a poor synagogue caretaker, and it's true if you're a Westchester lawyer.

Just ask Alfredo Vargas and Andrew M. Labella. Mr. Vargas was the loyal, indispensable caretaker at Congregation Adat Yisrael until his life was ruined in 2000 by a false accusation of raping a 4-year-old girl.

He was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to prison, then granted a new trial after congregants and other supporters, convinced that he could not have committed the crime and saying the girl's family had a history of alleging sexual abuse, rallied to his defense.

At the second trial last year, after the girl picked out two jurors as her assailant, he was acquitted but then deported to Nicaragua because he was in the United States illegally. (He entered legally in 1969 but failed to maintain legal status.)

Mr. Vargas, 69, now living with a sister in Nicaragua, won't get his old life back. The congregation has disbanded. He's not likely to return to the United States. He contracted lymphoma in prison and has had difficulty finding any work in Nicaragua.

Still, he wanted two things. The first was his good name back. "If I didn't clear my name, I would die like a piece of garbage," he said after the second trial. "And I thank God that people can know the truth."

The second, in his view, was a measure of vindication beyond the verdict.

This turned out to be less far-fetched than it might have seemed.

After Mr. Vargas was accused, the child's parents, Mr. Labella and Cheryl Hoppenstein, both lawyers now living in Scarsdale, N.Y., sued the synagogue's rabbi, Moshe Felsman — who earned his living from real estate more than his ministry — and the temple seeking monetary damages. The rabbi has since died.

Two weeks before the second trial, his widow agreed to a settlement that gave Mr. Labella and Ms. Hoppenstein title to the synagogue, part of a rambling house in Bridgeport. They received about $350,000 from the sale and are seeking additional insurance proceeds, said Stuart Rosenberg, a former president of the congregation and a supporter of Mr. Vargas.

With the help of Mr. Rosenberg and others, Mr. Vargas then turned around and filed a lawsuit against Mr. Labella and Ms. Hoppenstein. He alleged that he was the victim of a malicious prosecution and sought a million dollars for each year he was imprisoned — about $5 million.

So this week Mr. Labella was the one in court, seeking to seal the files in State Superior Court, saying it was necessary to protect his daughter's identity. The judge, in an earlier ruling, agreed to identify the couple only as John Doe and Jane Roe, but he refused on Monday to seal the files.

The couple have already been identified in publications including The Connecticut Post, The Journal News in Westchester and The Connecticut Law Tribune. The Post does not identify victims in sexual crimes, but its editor said that because the courts have declared that there was no assault, the child's identity does not need protection.

"It's not about the kid," said the paper's editor, James H. Smith. "It's about whether the parents made it up."

Mr. Labella spoke on the witness stand of the need to protect his daughter. "She's a very sweet girl who is being assaulted by a very vindictive and sick group of people," he said.

But lawyers for Mr. Vargas argued that not only was the girl not in need of protection, but the public was served by identifying the couple so they could not make another claim in the future.

The lawyers provided affidavits from three people about false abuse allegations by the family. They said at least three others have given similar accounts.

You can allege anything in a lawsuit, and Mr. Labella made reference to a 1983 case in which Mr. Vargas was given a suspended sentence in a case involving risk of injury to a minor. The rabbi had said that the case was a misunderstanding.

SO, if not nearly comparable, Mr. Vargas and Mr. Labella now face similar circumstances: both have found themselves defendants in cases they describe as malicious and unfair.

Perhaps Mr. Labella will be fortunate enough to find as many people who will stand up for his character as Mr. Vargas found to stand up for his.

After all, this case has shown many times that things are not always as they seem and can go in entirely unexpected directions.

Just ask Mr. Vargas.

For 20 years, the Orthodox synagogue was his life. He built its sanctuary by hand, drove elderly congregants to doctors' appointments, turned on the lights during the Sabbath.

Then it looked like the place where he had been consigned to oblivion.

If a settlement from its sale allows him peace and security in old age, it would be a final, surprising kind cut in an unkind deal.

E-mail: peappl@nytimes.com

A version of this article appeared in print on May 24, 2006, on page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: Falsely Accused, and Trying to Prevent a Repeat Episode.